Jonas Van Vossole

This article frames the failure of COP19 in Warsaw, the problems of the RIO+20 summit, the failure of the Copenhagen COP15, and the problems of the carbon markets within a broader legitimacy crisis of global governance, a consequence of the crisis of the global capitalist socio-ecology. Two mechanisms give rise to the loss of legitimacy: unequal development and mercantilization, or the reconfiguration of the power balance and the destruction of social ties. As a consequence, both winners and losers contest the legitimacy of the institutions and mechanisms that govern global capitalism. In this article, we distinguish between Marx-type contestation, referring to emerging classes/states, and Polanyi-type contestation, referring to the victims of global mercantilization. As related to climate governance, the roles of the BRICs in climate negotiations and the global environmental justice movement represent these two types of contestation of the established organizational structures within the global capitalist socio-ecology.

Van Vossole's article explores the racist framing of the peripheral member states of the European Union, the PIGS (Portugal, Ireland (and/or Italy), Greece and Spain). It demonstrates a strong connection between the processes of racialization and depoliticization, as well as the return of colonial dynamics in the Eurozone. Side-stepping political economy and history, the culturalization of politics perfectly complements the ‘post-political’ neoliberal hegemony. Political and media discourses reproduce it in both populist and corporate interests. The culturalization of politics reduces the differences between centre and periphery to certain ‘cultural characteristics and habits’, as reflected in stereotypes of laziness, non-productivity, corruption, wasteful spending and lying. These make it possible to blame the PIGS for the current crisis, legitimizing drastic austerity measures and a loss of sovereignty. The loss of sovereignty shows remarkable similarities with what Kwame Nkrumah defined as neocolonialism: the continuation of colonial power relations through processes of economic dependence, conditional aid and cultural hegemony. While this problematic only resurfaced during the recent Euro crisis, Van Vossole discusses how today's racist discourses and neocolonial politics have their roots in the past, particularly in anti-Irish and anti-Mediterranean racism and in the (semi-)colonial position of the PIGS in the British and Ottoman empires. Besides structural violence against the periphery, a major consequence of this racialization is that it jeopardizes any possibility of further democratic political integration on the basis of a common European identity.

This paper studies the effects of the crisis on dem
ocracy. Its methodology is based on a
dialectic-materialist approach of ideology. Democra
cy is approached as a crucial ideological
element in the legitimation of capitalist political
economy. Molded by the social struggles,
democracy evolved in an antagonistic relation with
capitalism. Every hegemonic crisis affects
the dominant meaning of democracy, creating diverge
nt narratives about it. This is illustrated in
the case of Portugal. Policymakers and the Troika s
till defend the dominant elitist
representative democracy. Unions and the old left d
efend the necessity of social rights, as a
substantive part of democracy. The newest social mo
vements demand a participative and
deliberative forms. The last section explores some
possible hegemonic re-articulations.

Este artigo enquadra os atuais problemas da Rio+20, o falhanço da Cimeira de Copenhaga (COP15) e, mais recentemente, dos mercados de carvão numa ampla crise de legitimidade da governança global, consequência da crise global da socioecologia capitalista. Dois mecanismos dão origem a esta perda de legitimidade, o desenvolvimento desigual e a mercantilização; ou seja a reconfiguração das relações de força entre atores e a destruição dos laços sociais. Como resultado, tanto vencedores como perdedores contestam a legitimidade das instituições que governam a reprodução do capitalismo global. Neste artigo distinguimos respetivamente a contestação tipo‑Marx de novas/os classes/Estados emergentes e tipo‑Polanyi das vítimas da mercantilização global. Na esfera da governança climática, estes vencedores e perdedores são representados pelos BRICS nas negociações climáticas e pelo movimento global de justiça ambiental.

Ruy Mauro Marini's 1972 analysis on how Brazil-as a semi-peripheral country-developing its own form of imperialist politics, was confronted with the limits of its own dependency of international capital, never seemed so actual as today. Since the turn of the millennium we have seen the rise of Brazil, as one of the BRICS, the new Global imperial players, based upon a boom in commodities and a fragile national interclass compromise led by the PT. Increasing foreign investments in Latin America and Africa-particularly in commodity markets-by Brazilian multinationals such as Vale, Petrobras, the agro-industry and Brazilian banks, were accompanied with an increasingly assertive position of the Brazilian state in its sphere of influence and on the world stage. Examples are the tensions with Paraguay and Bolivia, its role in Haiti, its critique of the existing institutionalization of Global governance institutions and its affirmation as the global Eco-power in Climate policies. The recent crisis however, has shown that the Brazilian political economy is not just marked by imperialist dynamics, but equally shows a strong dependency on global capitalism and central imperialist powers. At the same time that climate governance is increasingly confronted with a legitimacy crisis, contracting export-markets, capital-flight and exploding bubbles of financial speculation have thrown the Brazilian economy back into a deep crisis, weakening both its internal economy as well as the legitimacy of the state itself: a situation marked by a rise of social struggles and the delegitimation of the political and judicial system in corruption scandals, culminating so far in the widely contested parliamentary-judicial coup against former president Dilma Rousseff.

The economic conditions and austerity policies in Southern Europe have produced a
hegemonic crisis of democracy. While unions and the traditional left questioned the idea of a
democracy without its social substance in the form of social right - new social movements have
radicalized the idea. Demanding “democracia real ya!”, they directly attacked representation
and the political system as a whole. This paper makes a critical analysis of the anti-political and
anti-ideological stance of the newest social movements in Portugal and problematizes its
possible articulation with the post-political elements of the dominant neoliberal form.
Therefore it first discusses the concept of depolitization and post-politics and its link with the
dominant neoliberal ideology. Then this framework is then applied to the founding manifestos
of a selection of 6 anti-austerity social movements; Movimento Geração á Rasca, Movimento
12 Março, Acampada do Rossio, Indignados de Lisboa, Acampada de Coimbra and Que Se Lixe
a Troika. In each of these manifestoes the elements that reflect the post-political discourse
about democracy are selected and criticized. These elements include the self-identification as
“personal” and “post-ideological”, taking distance of (party)politics and addressing the crisis as
a problem of “politicians”. We will argue that this critique of “the old way of doing politics”
and the post-ideological stance; as well as the ilusions in participative democracy as such,
actually are Fukuyamaist, and avoid addressing the structural problems of the political
economy behind the crisis. A conscience of these post-political elements is crucial to avoid a
cooptation of this discourse in the dominant neoliberal framework and to make possible an
articulation with other anti-capitalist forces in order to bring forward a unified counter
hegemonic discourse able to mobilise and politicize the different layers of society against
austerity policies.

The economic conditions and austerity policies in Southern Europe have produced a hegemonic crisis of democracy. While unions and the traditional left questioned the idea of a democracy without its social substance in the form of social right - new social movements have radicalized the idea. Demanding “democracia real ya!”, they directly attacked representation and the political system as a whole. This paper makes a critical analysis of the anti-political and anti-ideological stance of the newest social movements in Portugal and problematizes its possible articulation with the post-political elements of the dominant neoliberal form. Therefore it first discusses the concept of depolitization and post-politics and its link with the dominant neoliberal ideology. Then this framework is then applied to the founding manifestos of a selection of 6 anti-austerity social movements; Movimento Geração á Rasca, Movimento 12 Março, Acampada do Rossio, Indignados de Lisboa, Acampada de Coimbra and Que Se Lixe a Troika. In each of these manifestoes the elements that reflect the post-political discourse about democracy are selected and criticized. These elements include the self-identification as “personal” and “post-ideological”, taking distance of (party)politics and addressing the crisis as a problem of “politicians”. We will argue that this critique of “the old way of doing politics” and the post-ideological stance; as well as the ilusions in participative democracy as such, actually are Fukuyamaist, and avoid addressing the structural problems of the political economy behind the crisis. A conscience of these post-political elements is crucial to avoid a cooptation of this discourse in the dominant neoliberal framework and to make possible an articulation with other anti-capitalist forces in order to bring forward a unified counter hegemonic discourse able to mobilise and politicize the different layers of society against austerity policies

This article is an inquiry into “crisis” as an analytical concept, eventually to be applied upon the “democracy”. It  recovers the conceptual history of the concept of crisis. Throughout history, from its origin in Greek mythology and philosophy, to its modern scientific meanings, crisis has always been connected to the idea of “immanence” and an apparent opposition between subjectivity and objectivity. The concept of crisis explores the boundaries between judgment and process, between ideology and material circumstances and is therefore closely linked to the historical, dialectical, critical and emacipatory perspectives in social science. This crisis-perspective is applied in an analysis of the influence of the euro-crisis upon democracy within the setting of the Portuguese social conflict. Throughout history, every hegemonic crisis of capitalism has affected the dominant meanings of democracy. Hegemonic breakdown of the liberal, electoral representative democratic model in the peripheral areas of the European Union, created the space for – and is created by - divergent narratives about democracy.

This paper draws a critical approach of the austerity measures imposed on the so-called PIGS. Particularly, it explores the recent racist framing in  political and media discourses  of  the peripheral member states of the  EU,  during the  debt crisis and decomposition of the Eurozone.  The paper observes a relation between Core and Periphery of the Eurozone system based on 3 elements; racism, neocolonialism and uneven development.  A racist narrative is constructed  which blames the PIGS  and their  inhabitants for the crisis on the basis of  “cultural characteristics and habits”, such as laziness, non-productivity, corruption, wasteful spending and  lying. This culturalization of politics  (Brown 2008), which  reduces the  political and economic divergences between center and periphery to a cultural problem between a culture of productivity and one of laziness,  legitimates  drastic austerity measures  and loss of sovereignty. The combination of recent adjustments and the racist narrative  is the construction of a  new type of colonialism within the EU,  very similar to what  Nkrumah (1965)  observed in the neocolonial world.  A  democratic solution for the crisis requires the politicization and political integration  of all citizens of the EU as equal citizens, although this currently seems impossible

This article frames recent problems of the RIO+20 summit, the failure of the Copenhagen COP15 and the problems of the carbon markets within a broader legitimacy crisis of Global Governance, consequence of the crisis of the global capitalist socio-ecology. Two mechanisms give rise to the loss of legitimacy; unequal development and mercantilization, or the reconfiguration of the power balance and the destruction of social ties. As a consequence both winners and losers contest the legitimacy of the institutions and mechanisms that govern global capitalism. In this article, we distinguish Marx-type of contestation, referring to emerging classes/states and Polanyi-type of contestation, referring to the victims of global mercantilization. In the case of Climate governance, these are represented by the role of the BRIC’s in climate negotiations and by the global environmental justice movement.

"This paper addresses contestation and legitimation crisis at the level of local power. It studies the interconnection between the dynamics of the economic conjuncture of capitalism and local power legitimation. The theoretical perspective is based on Habermas’(1975) conception of the legitimacy crisis of governance within a capitalist system. To make sense of different complex dynamics, we will isolate the perspective for the local setting.
How does the legitimation crisis expresses itself on the local level and how do local policy-makers deal with it? This is the central question I want to discuss in this paper. I argue that the strategies used by those policy-makers can be categorized on the basis of the two dimensions of legitimacy, the procedural and substantive, and on their exclusionary or inclusionary character.
"

The effects of the euro-crisis in Portugal have led to a breakdown of a democratic hegemony, which had been around for nearly 40 years. The first section of this article analyses how the crisis rendered its balanced configuration of forces around European/occidental integration and a developing social welfare state through the form of a representative parliamentary democracy unsustainable, leading to a generalized democratic legitimacy crisis, comparable to similar events in other countries since 2011. An outburst of huge protest movements and the emergence of a period of “demodiversity” with a wide range of alternative democratic perspectives – with the indignado-like “acampadas” as the most well-known example, challenged the previously hegemonic liberal representative model. During the following years, the object of the wider anger towards the political system in general came to be evermore embodied within the person of the prime minister, Passos Coelho, and the Troika institutions. With the 2015 general election approaching, social protest was increasingly canalized towards an electoral drive to oust the incumbent right wing government. The second section of this article thus explores how the period of waiting for a reconfiguration – with different deliberative, utopistic and participative democratic horizons - led back into an electoral representative logic. The paper concludes that what came into life as a propagandistic/tactical discourse was through the internal systemic logic institutionalized in a renewed - though feeble - electoralist reconfiguration, formalized through the legitimating discourses around the leftwing - Geringonça - government agreement.

This paper  attempts to bring a contribution to the relatively recent debate about the legitimacy of Global Governance among authors as  Bodansky (1999), Bernstein (2004), Buchanan & Keohane (2006) and Paterson (2010).  According to most of those  authors, the questions of legitimacy of Global Governance  arise because of  the process of  Globalization and the need for strengthening  its institutionalization. In this paper,  however,  I will try to defend that this questions exactly arise because of a downturn in the trend of Globalization, claiming there is a wave-pattern in Globalization.  I claim that Global governance is the result of the  institutionalization  of dialectical process  between  accumulation  and the need for legitimation which has always been a central tension in the reproduction of the capitalist system (Paterson 2010).
This paper  defends that  the rising contestation of globalization by social movements in the core of the world-system  and the rising appeal for “democratization” of the institutions of Global Governance  is the consequence of an underlying dynamic  of the accumulation process, provoking  a legitimation crisis.  The continuing phases  of capital accumulation on a global scale and the  waves of resistance against it, create a wave-pattern of legitimation and delegitimation of Global Governance. These  play a  crucial role  in  producing the future of the world system.  Analysing  them is crucial to understand past present and future developments. (Chase-Dunn & Gills 2003, p.6)

One of the practical issues that dominates the debate within the left and in the Portuguese society in general as a consequence of the Euro Crisis, is the question if Portugal should or should not stay in the Eurozone. Since the intervention of Troika in Portugal we have seen different organizations on the left and on the right take different points of view in this issue. A deeper understanding of this issue is crucial to find possible ways out of the current crisis situation.
The first section will address the methodological issues. The second section will draw the historical context of euro-scepticism in Portugal. The third section will draw the mainstream theoretical arguments on optimal currency areas. In the fourth section we draw the arguments pro and against the euro-exit on the basis of texts of the BE and the PCP. In the fifth section I will show how a Parallax view (Zizek, 2006) could solve the problem for their contradictions.

This text develops a dialogue between the Gramscian concept of Hegemony and the concept of demo-diversity. Applying these concepts to the case of the Portuguese Indignado movement and the Portuguese political parties, the primary objective of this texts is to discuss their usefulness in a contemporary socialist strategy.
Both the concepts of hegemony and demo-diversity have been developed by academics engaged in the anti-capitalist struggles as theoretical and strategic answers on how emancipatory movements could deal with bourgeois liberal democracy. The concept of Hegemony was developed by Antonio Gramsci in the context of the interwar period. He argued that the institutionalization of capitalist democracy after the first world war had enabled the bourgeois class to rule by consent and revolutionary organizations had to adapt their strategies to this hegemony. Based on this concept of hegemony and inspired by the struggles of the Portuguese revolutionary period and experiences in the post-colonial world, Boaventura de Sousa Santos developed the concept of demo-diversity to contest the hegemonic position of liberal elitist democracy in the neoliberal age.
There seems to be an apparent contradiction between both. Gramsci clearly argues that the party, the modern prince, as the representative of the universal class, should struggle for hegemony. No such thing is present in the concept of demo-diversity. On the contrary; the aim is exactly that demo-diversity serves as a legitimation of struggles against a democratic monoculture - particularly if mono-culture is based on a hegemonic depoliticized transclass-consensus, neglecting non-represented or exluded parts of the consensus. This apparent contradiction stands for a fierce academic debate, particularly in Brazil, between “orthodox Marxist” and “post-modern” intellectuals.

I argue that this intellectual contradiction is only the consequence of different temporalities and changing particular conditions in the political struggle. As both concepts have been developed as strategic political concepts for the social struggles, as any strategy; their usefulness depends on the concrete circumstances and specific goals in the process of struggle for political power and social emancipation. I argue that “demo-diversity” as a legitimacy-claim of different forms of democratic legitimacy is both a useful step to break the hegemonic form of bourgeois democratic governance as a certain form of self-critique. The hegemonization of one political economic alternative; the struggle for universalization of an oppressed particular, remains crucial I argue. It is this struggle for hegemony which sustains democracy as a process of social and political emancipation and is the essential part of “the political”.

"In this paper I contest the mainstream positivist and deliberative readings of democracy on the base of “crisis” as an analytical concept. I therefore recover the conceptual history of the concept of crisis to arrive at a methodological approach based on dialectical materialism. While crisis finds its etymological origin in old Greek mythology and philosophy, its modern meaning is usually traced back to its medical use. As I will show, throughout history crisis has always been connected to the idea of “immanence” and apparent opposition between subjectivity and objectivity. The concept of crisis explores the boundaries between a judgment and a process, between ideology or “spirit” and material circumstances and is therefore closely linked to the historical, dialectical and critical perspectives in social science.
I use this crisis-perspective in an analysis of the influence of the euro-crisis on democracy within the setting of the Portuguese social conflict and particularly the phenomenon of the breakdown of the hegemony of the liberal, electoral representative democratic model in the peripheral areas of the European Union. Democracy is here approached as “ideology” with a particular role of legitimizing and protecting established relations in the political economy. In this paper we’ll show how Democracy has been molded by the social struggles, and thus co-evolved in an antagonistic relation with capitalism.
Throughout history, every hegemonic crisis of capitalism has affected the dominant meanings of democracy. Hegemonic breakdown of democratic hegemony creates the space for – and is created by - divergent narratives about the idea. This kind of crisis-process is illustrated in the case of Portugal: Policymakers and the Troika still defend the dominant elitist representative democracy. Unions and the old left defend the necessity of social rights, as a substantive part of democracy and the newest social movements demand participative and deliberative forms."

The economic conditions and austerity policies in southern Europe have produced a hegemonic crisis of democracy. The legitimation crisis of the liberal elitist representative democracy  has led to divergent perspectives. In the political struggle for the meaning of democracy as Master-signifier new hegemonic or counterhegemonic alliances are formed. This paper critically examines 2 axes on which these hegemonic re-articulations seem to happen: political-economic vs post-political, and nationalistic vs internationalist.
While unions and the traditional left questioned the idea of a democracy without its social substance in the form of social right - new social movements have radicalized the idea. Demanding “democracia real ya!”, the 15M movement – but also M12M movement and other occupy movements – tended directly attack representation and the political system as a whole. This “anti-political” and “anti-party” positions tended to create a inimical relation between the  “old” organized left and the new social movements. This paper makes a critical analysis of the anti-political and anti-ideological stance of most of the newest social movements and problematizes its possible articulation with the post-political elements of the dominant neoliberal form. It will also discuss if the “old left” idea of a democracy based on a social welfare state and social rights still has a counterhegemonic possibility and why it is failing to articulate the struggles with the newest social movements.
The international character of financial capitalism, the global effects of the recent financial meltdown and the similar circumstances of the political-economic developments in the European periphery laid the basis for the international character of protest-movements. From the Arab spring  to Wall street, over the indignados and traditional trade-union strikes, protests emerged against the economic crisis. While some of the resistance found its ideological articulation in internationalist solidarity, such as the Global Spring movement, recently - particularly due to the electoral systems – the protests against the conditions of the crisis have been re-articulated in the form of nationalist discourses about democracy. We will critically review those stances addressing their implications and vulnerabilities.
Every of those re-articulations will be illustrated with examples from Portugal, but the processes are easily applicable to Spain, Greece, and even – though in a lesser extent to other countries.

This text analyses how discourses about democracy emerge in the transition from the dictatorship. The crumbling of the ruling elitist paternalist hegemony of the Estado Novo and the institutional chaos after the revolution created the space for the emergence of a wide diversity of political discourses. Since 25th April “democracy” became the unquestionable principle of the new political organization, reflecting the hegemonic articulation of the opposition which brought down the regime. The consequence is a wide diversity of different discourses about democracy; each of them reflecting different visions about the future  Portugal, dependent on class-positions as well as the geopolitical power relations in the world.

The rightwing reflected a elitist parliamentary model of democracy as a continuation of the logic of the primavera Marcelista. The military leftwing alliance MFA/Povo had a much more participative approach, regarding popular mobilization and participation as the base of its revolutionary legitimacy. The communist party saw patriotic liberal democracy with the acquisition of workers’ rights as an essential stage towards a socialist transformation of society, while the organizations on its left claimed that democracy was only compatible with socialism. The rightwing military such as Spinola on the other hand claimed to mobilize “the silent majority” against the “communist danger”. During the PREC, the period of intense social struggles between 1974 and 1976, the continuing ideological clashes between these different “democratic traditions” reflected the violent “material” confrontations; revolutionary reforms and reactionary violence, such as in the “verão quente”, the 11 of March coup, the “reforma agraria”…

The military coup of 25 of November 1976 symbolized the end of PREC and the institutionalization of power-relations in a constitutional representative political democracy around two poles. The PSD and CDS constituted the right, the PCP, the extra-parliamentary left, the left wing of the PS and the CGTP the left pole. Since, for the rightwing pole democracy meant a liberal formal conceptualization of democracy based on representative democracy, stability, the rule of law, property rights and free markets. It sees “Europe” and European integration as the perfect partner for implementing these bourgeois tasks which it was never able to implement. For the left democracy means continuation of “the revolution”, symbolizing social justice, workers rights, the development of a social welfare system, popular and national sovereignty. Around these two poles, around “Europe” and “the revolution”, a relatively sustainable hegemonic interpretation of democracy emerged. Particularly in the period of growth after the integration in the EC and the end of the Cold war, both interpretations of the post-revolutionary compromise could co-habit and complemented each other.

Todays crisis however has put a high pressure on both pillars of “democracy”; for the anti-austerity-protestors it becomes hardly possible to recognize themselves in a “Europe” which is identified with austerity, lack of sovereignty, post-political technocracy. At the same time, the ideas of “the revolution”; the April-constitution, the social “privileges” and the power of social mobilization become unsustainable for a sustainable economy, financial property rights and European requirements.  In this declining hegemony, fierce public debates re-emerge in new social turmoil; about what democracy is today and about the heritage of the revolution.